Paradox as a discipline

Most advice about technological change picks a side. Either: embrace it now, whoever waits too long loses out. Or: sit tight, the hype will die down of its own accord. Bob de Wit, professor of Strategic Leadership at Nyenrode Business Universiteit and founder of Strategy Works, built his entire body of work on the refusal to make that choice. His books, used at universities internationally since the nineties, are sometimes called the "paradox school" of strategic thinking, not because they are undecided, but because they take the tension itself seriously instead of polishing it away.

Two truths, neither of which disappears

De Wit's core idea is easy to state and hard to sustain: an organisation has to improve what already exists and at the same time prepare for a future in which that existing thing becomes redundant. Not one after the other, first optimise, then innovate once you have no choice. But at the same time, out of the same limited hours and the same limited money. That touches on an older idea from organisation studies: in 1991 the organisational theorist James March described exploitation and exploration as two movements that are forever competing for the same resources. To this De Wit adds a thesis that is emphatically his own: in his view we are not in an ordinary bout of turbulence but in what he calls, in his book Society 4.0 (2021), a societal revolution, driven by artificial intelligence, biotechnology and digitalisation breaking through at the same time.

Why the easy way out does not work

Both easy answers to AI are, in De Wit's terms, a flight from the paradox rather than a way of handling it. "Leave it all to the machine" neglects what already works today and already brings in income or trust. "Ignore the machine until the squall passes" neglects the fact that some shifts do not pass. The uncomfortable route, both at once, neither of them by halves, is less satisfying to hear and, in De Wit's own research among leaders who kept it up, more durable in the long run.

What this means in practice

Translated into an everyday choice: do not give up what works today because something new is coming tomorrow, and do not give up the new because it still feels uncertain today. Set aside time and resources for both, in proportion to what you can spare. And accept that the proportion never feels like enough for both sides at once. That uncomfortable feeling is, according to De Wit, not a sign that you are doing it wrong. It is the sign that you have not smoothed the paradox away.

"A thought to carry with you: if a choice feels entirely comfortable, you have probably let go of one side of the paradox."